Thread Deletion

#1 I agree. Many people decide to delete the thread just because they got there answer, and think no one else will use the information.

#2 My opinion is that locked thread clutter message boards. We've all seen message boards with "sticky" posts, banned users, locked threads, avatar pictures, page numbers for threads, etc.. To me, those things are just clutter.

#3 I agree completely with Josh. Makes people feel like they are wasting their time posting in forumns that might end up getting deleted. Not to mention that I WANT to read threads like that. I want to know who I probably don't want to work with in the future based on what I'd consider an idiotic and aggressive post.

#4 Unfortunately though we have few bad apples in the community that feel that it is more appropriate to act like assholes and jerks and make most discussions into Flame Bait. The actions of these few do unfortunately necessitate IMHO the need for certain posts to be deleted because the thread has disgressed into a petty and unprofessional dispute about one-sided person opinions. I agree that the content of these threads is usually pretty valuable, but I also have to agree and respect the decision of GG to remove these flame bait threads as in the end they negatively impact our community.

For example: We have a very similar problem on IRC where a few people feel that the channel should be their own personal chat channel which should be appropriate to anything they deem is right. This unfortunately has the negative effect of creating too much noise and driving the channel off topic and as an end result many of the experianced Torque users go off to form their own private channels because they are fed up with the bullshit and thus their experiance is lost because they feel that their experiance and knowledge is simply going to waste and they have better things to do than sit around and have their time needlessly wasted when they could be making games and moving foward.

So ultimately the decision comes down to this: Do we want a highly professional community where everyone is working together to move ahead in great leaps and strides in order to succeed in the small window that we have, or do we want this to be like any other game development community on the internet where its just a lot of noise and a lost signal?

#5 We need to make order, but there is different way of doing it.
Policeman don't shoot at people for every crime...
Sure after that, they stop any criminal activitie :)

locking the thread is efficient and protect the most essential moral aspect like freedom of speech.

And I don't even talk about the fact that if someone want a thread to be delete, he can do it easily..
It will be less interesting for bad apple, if the message of the oposite opinion stay visible, what ever he do.

100 X bigger forum use this kind of administration with a great success.
Why not garagegames?

Deletion should be use only for illegal content.

#6 1) Our home grown forum software (which was wonderful back when there were only hundreds instead of tens of thousands of community members) doesn't have the ability to lock threads.

2) We reserve the right to delete threads when it becomes the only solution to end an unprofessional or abusive thread. We make every effort whenever possible to "calm down" and/or "unhijack" the thread prior to doing so.

3) New forum functionality (along with new forum software, period) is always being discussed and researched.

4) The number of deleted threads is almost astronimically small compared to the total threads posted.

5) A community of this size many times has many more paid moderators that GarageGames simply cannot afford. I personally spend between 3 and 6 hours a day simply moderating and reviewing posts. And I'm only one of 3 people that track forums as part of their primary/secondary job responsibilities.

Here's the common scenario for a thread winding up deleted:

A) Someone introduces a controversial topic.
B) People reply with emotional/strongly valued opinions.
C) People counter-reply with either:

• unprofessional statements in general
• attacks on GarageGames
• attacks on community members
• rants that do nothing to contribute to the discussion except for inflame others (GG, GG staff, or community members

D)Escalation ensues
E) GG Staff step in and try to quiet down the thread.
F) Escalation continues
G) GG Staff attempt further to de-escalate, and fail.
H) Thread is deleted (sometimes, if it has good content, it is saved off as well, but not always).

Honestly, while bad apples can taint any community (we've wound up forum banning, and in some cases even refunding product simply to get bad apples out of the community), the professionalism of the forums is up to the members of the community.

#7 Hey Josh. What thread are you refering to?'

-Jeff

#8 That scenario is a whole lot of wasted energy and has multiple interventions by GG staff in it. I think the ability to lock threads is an important moderation tool. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

#9 @Josh: I agree, but see my point #1, and then #3.

#10

Quote:E) GG Staff step in and try to quiet down the thread.

Stephen, you sprinkled a little sugar on that one.

#11 I thought this was about allowing members to delete their own threads.
Perhaps counter flames and people deleting good information just to remove their thread from the list.
For like Q/A stuff, have a question, and accepted answers, and lock the thread and save only the accepted answers, then remove the thread from the forum into an archive of Q/A discussions.

#12 Thread pruning is a good mod method, delete all the posts in threads that are abusive, flaming etc leaving the core discussion free to continue.

Threads that are started with the sole intention of flaming can probably just be deleted straight off, but those topics that begin as a good discussion then get side tracked, should be pruned.

Overall though I'd rather see pruning of threads than locking, and would rather see locking than deletion. Keeping deletion for totally off topic posts that were never "on topic" in the first place.

Overall though the GG forums have an incredibly high signal to noise ratio than many forums I frequent. Recently things have been getting a little more noisy as the community continues to grow, so putting something in place to check that isn't a bad idea. But on the whole these forums are pretty flame free compared to others.

#13 I think we should employ some of the...uh, best from Tribal War as some kind of "Forum Ninja Strikeforce". Instead of deleting threads, we'll just forward the URL to them.

#14 I think Gary's opinion is pretty good way of going about things(prune, then lock, then delete).